Yahoo Finance Varadkar: EU must be open to new UK Brexit proposals
Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar said on Tuesday that the European Union should be open to “any proposals” that UK prime minister Theresa May might bring forward to resolve the Brexit impasse.
Speaking alongside French president Emmanuel Macron in Paris, Varadkar said there was still sufficient time for May to present “credible” solutions.
“As things stand, the UK will leave the European Union on 12 April without a deal. However, there is still time for the prime minister to come to the European Council with proposals — proposals that are credible, and have a clear pathway to success,” he said.
“I think we need to be open to any proposals that she may bring forward to us.”
Varadkar said, however, that the withdrawal agreement itself “cannot be reopened.”
“But if the United Kingdom changes its red lines, we could make changes to the declaration on the future relationship,” he said.
The Irish leader also said that the EU needed to determine how it would respond to any requests from the UK for a longer Brexit extension, saying that the bloc wanted to avoid a “rolling extension.”
“Any extension must have a clear purpose and a clear plan,” Varadkar said.
He reiterated that any long extension would involve the UK participating in the upcoming European Parliament elections.
In the event of a no-deal Brexit, Varadkar said Ireland would have dual priorities: protecting the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which ushered in 20 years of relative peace and stability in Northern Ireland, and protecting the EU’s single market.
He said his government was currently in negotiations with the European Commission as to how to achieve both of these objectives.
